Blackjack Winners Shot and Robbed After Masked Gunmen Followed Them Home from Maryland Casino

Details have emerged of a violent robbery following big Blackjack wins at the MGM National Harbor casino in Maryland last December, one player shot in the arm as the robbers stole $39,000 from him.

Three suspects in the crime have been identified, first reported by the Washington Post, although the names of the victims and alleged perpetrators have not been released.

It appears to have been a co-ordinated hit by the armed robbers, CCTV footage of them following two winning Blackjack players through the casino to the parking garage, and then 20 miles by car to the victims’ homes in Woodbridge, Virginia, before attacking them.

The victims had won $39,000 and $3,000 respectively at the tables on December 19th, 2019 before their horrific ordeal.

Surveillance footage shows the suspects communicating via mobile phones as they followed the two marks and footage from a gas station CCTV camera en route later shows a grey SUV similar to the masked attackers’ car still on their tail.

What happened next was harrowing for the victims, one being struck in the head 20 times before being shot in the arm. The second victim also had a gun pulled on him and forced to lie on the ground. Both victims are said to be recovering from the attack.

Police in Prince William County linked the suspects through a DNA request search warrant that linked them to at least one other similar crime.

Unfortunately, poker players and gamblers are regularly targeted in such attacks, Tom ‘3BetPanda’ Steinbach shot and seriously wounded in a 2018 robbery-turned-shooting outside the Texas Card House in Austin.

Last summer, poker pro Joe ‘JoeySal’ Salvaggio had his Main Event buy-in robbed from him at gunpoint in the carpark of the Rio in Vegas during the WSOP.

 The Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida was targeted by a gunman, as were the Aquarius Casino Resort and Golden Nugget casinos in Laughlin, the gunman shot and killed by police in the latter case.

A robbery at the Bellagio last year saw the suspect shot dead after a gunfight with Las Vegas police outside the casino.

49-year-old Las Vegas resident Michael Charles Cohen had previous convictions for bank robberies, as well as arrests for kidnapping and carjacking. He was also the prime suspect for a 2017 armed robbery, also at the Bellagio.